An illusion of democracy

From today’s editorials: A bill that would let school districts avoid recessionary belt tightening is an unfunded mandate on taxpayers.

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The Education Mandate Relief Act of 2010, passed by the state Senate this week, might be better dubbed The End Run Around Voters Act.

The bill, sponsored by Sen. Suzi Oppenheimer, D-Mamaroneck, sounds well-intentioned enough. School districts for years have asked the Legislature to stop heaping unfunded mandates on them — telling them to do things that cost more money but not providing the funds. It’s Albany’s way of passing costly, feel-good legislation while leaving it to some lower level of government to raise taxes.

The bill doesn’t stop new unfunded mandates. It only bars the state from imposing them, unless absolutely necessary, after school budgets are in place.

It does, however, make it easier for districts to raise property taxes — even as politicians in Albany claim to be in favor of property tax relief.

The bill includes an eight-word change in the state law that governs contingency budgets, which school districts must adopt if voters shoot down their board of education’s proposed spending plan.

Contingency budgets generally can’t raise spending from the previous year by more than 4 percent or 120 percent of the change in the Consumer Price Index, whichever is less. Normally, the CPI is a positive number, so districts can always raise spending. But for the first time since 1955, the CPI on which next year’s contingency budgets would be based is a negative number. School districts whose budgets fail would have to cut more deeply than they’ve ever had to.

This comes as hundreds of thousands of people are unemployed, those with jobs are getting minimal, if any, raises, businesses are struggling and the state is considering school aid cuts.

School officials worry that many district budgets will be voted down, forcing them to live with austere contingency budgets. To be fair, a great deal of what is in the typical school budget isn’t easily cuttable. School boards don’t determine debt service, pension payments, fuel costs and health care increases. But they’ve also been loathe to rein in contracts that give teachers longevity raises on top of annual raises — one of the driving forces of ever-rising education costs.

Ms. Oppenheimer’s bill, and a similar one in the Assembly, sponsored by Amy Paulin, D-Scarsdale, would let districts off the hook. It would allow contingency budgets of 4 percent or “the average of the previous five years of” the CPI. That would turn the four-tenths of one percent decline in the CPI last year into an increase of 2.5 percent.

Public school budget votes are done for a reason: To allow communities to decide what is the best education they can afford. This legislation is a clear attempt to weaken the one tool voters have to keep education costs in line with their own budgets. It would allow school boards to pretend the economy is rolling along just fine.

This is the same kind of thinking that allows legislators to propose tax relief before they’ve balanced the state budget, and to reject new taxes and fees while borrowing money that taxpayers will have to repay with interest. It’s a mentality that refuses to admit that sometimes, lawmakers have to tell voters things they don’t want to hear.

The Assembly should reject this bill. Or it should at least insist that every school tax bill sent this fall contain a prominent note: “This tax increase was brought to you by your state legislator.”

One Response

Your vituperative criticism against the CPI 5-year rolling average is completelty misplaced. Yes — if passed this year some school districts with defeated budgets will not be decimated (issues like steps and longevity in contracts are actually being dealt with across NYS by school boards with expired contracts — see Bedford, NY — impasse is due to the board’s position on steps and longevity). A 5- year rolling average at least allows districts to plan — and — moreover, with the inevitable coming of rampant inflation in a year or two or three — this provision will actually be advantageous to the taxpayer — when they will most need it.